honour for its author. To conclude, it may be fairly said, that he had a genius which would have risen to eminence in any course to which it might have been directed.

Besides the History of the Absorbent System, here remarked, Mr. Sheldon published the following:

"Dissertationes Quatuor, Johannis Nathaniel Lieberkuhn, 1782." "An Essay on the Fracture of the Patella, 1789."

"An Essay on the Iris, published at Exeter, 1794, presented to a Society there, under the title of Essays by a Society at Exeter."

J. F.

THE love of indolence, much oftener than any motives of religion, induces many young persons to enter into convents. Feel ing themselves not inclined, or finding themselves not qualified for any active employment, they look upon the monastery as an asylum from the toil, the anxieties, and the misfortunes, incident; to those who launch into the world, and where the wants of nature are supplied in abundance, and without trouble.

SOLITUDE.

Few men can endure perpetual solitude. I was conversing with M. *** a Jesuit, and an intimate friend of mine, of the strict rules of his convent, particularly in what regarded solitude. He agreed with me entirely on the sad state of retiring altogether from the world, and told me in confidence, that if not more than ten or twelve of the brothers became mad during the twelve months, it was thought a wonderfully fortunate year.

COQUETRY.

Tacitus records a curious instance of coquetry in Poppæa, the wife of Nero. She used to cover a great part of her face, in order to raise an high idea of her beauty. "Velata oris, parte, ne satia-! ret aspectum;" veiling part of her face, that she might not glut the eyes of the spectator with her charms.

1

ENDYMION THE EXILE.

LETTER XXII.

F

ROM the depth of despondency, you have raised me to the pinnacle of joy! Ambrose is again free, and Endymion is again. happy. But, good Heavens, what a price for a substitute does this inexorable Conscription require! The generosity of Sir CHI- is, I own, proverbial, yet I little expected him to advance so large a sum. Behold me then once again the sportive Gossamer of Fortune, and treat, I conjure you, the reflections in my last as the reveries of a morbid imagination. Happy myself, I sought faces merry as my own, and went to the theatre to find them. I was disappointed, for the audience were in the act of taking leave of a favourite actor, who for a length of years had run a career of stage excellence, unrivalled by aught, except his private. good character. Though myself a stranger to the man, and not intimately acquainted with his language, I partook of the general regret: all emotions in a crowd are sympathetic. The face, which for thirty years the public had welcomed with smiles, they were now beholding for the last time. To a man thus caressed, and thus circumstanced, retirement in the decline of life can af ford few pleasures. Like a worn-out statesman, he may complain of the fatiguing huzzas of the mob, but his ears are sensible of a painful vacuity when their acclamations are heard no more. Valeat res ludicra is as serious a sentence as an actor can utter. And yet, Ambrose, if we consider the matter a little more closely, in what respect does it differ from a merchant leaving off business? When a man like my friend TRANSFER finally turns his back upon the Royal Exchange, he rather rejoices than laments. Determining to spend the remainder of his days in ease and comfort, he is astonished at the stupid indifference, with which his postilion jogs towards his earthly paradise at Twickenham, and if he be a man of a very active intellect, it is probably a full week before he discovers that father Thames is a much pleasanter fellow at the Custom-House Quay than at Richmond Bridge. Why

L L-VOL. VI.*

should not the actor feel as much joy at his emancipation as the citizen? Why should not he exult on quitting a scene of bustle and jealous rivalry, to sojourn in a magical solitude, where he may appropriate to himself every soliloquy in SHAKSPEARE without question or controul? The performer to whom I have alluded, in the course of his speech mentioned something about gratitude. Such a word from the lips of an artist a little startled me. I take the meaning of the word gratitude to be a strong sense of favours conferred upon one man in preference to other competitors of equal merit. A favourite actor is not in this predicament, he is caressed, because in the opinion of his auditors, another of equal merit cannot be found. The extra-remuneration he receives being upon a par with the extra-pleasure he affords, the obligation is unquestionably mutual. In entrusting my palate to a BIRCH, my taste to a KEMBLE, my countenance to a LAWRENCE, or my cause to a GARROW, I do not even expect thanks. It is a matter of barter and exchange: reduce their merits to a common standard, and if I then persisted in preferring them to others, it would be time enough to talk of gratitude. In the world of letters, it has, on this side the channel, been for some time discovered, that a flattering dedication to Lord A. or Sir Harry B. mars the sale of the work; their approbation being in general in an inverse ratio to the merits of the book. The bookseller is here the only patron, and poor old Dedication is down among the dead men. I hope to see stage-adulation share the same fate. I have no great fancy for bows and curtseys. I hate respectful informations; and as for humble submissions, I desire none of their company. Men upon their death-beds are expected to speak the truth: why should not the actor, before he kicks away the ladder, do the same? A little wholesome truth told to the public, would certainly, in the present rage for novelty, be kindly received. Had the abdicating stage-monarch applied to me to pen his valedictory address, it should have been couched in the following terms:

"Ladies and Gentlemen!-By my own prudence and economy, aided by a casual preference on your part, I have acquired a fortune sufficient to allow me to live independent of all caprices but my own. A review of other sexagenary hermits might perhaps have told me, that occupation is the only antidote to grief, and that solitude gives a good man the hip, and a bad man the Jorrors. All this is very true; but that most convenient of doe

:

trines, there is no rule without an exception,' has determined me to the step I have taken. When I first came among you, I found you a far soberer set than I leave you. My Belcour and Beverly were then walking gentlemen: they have, of late, been running footmen. I was never much of a declaimer: a man of great dramatic talents found this out. He gave me something good to do if he had thought fit, no man was more able to give me something good to say. But you had too much good-humour to ask it, and he too much wit to throw it away unsolicited. Since that period, it is incredible to all but the frequenters of Newmarket, in how short a time I have travelled from OP to PS. I have hopped and I have straddled. I have capered before a mirror like the female savage at the Opera-House. I have danced in fetters, and paraded the park in a powdering gown. I have kicked cuckolds, bamboozled bailiffs, and somersetted old women, breaking the unities and China plates at a most unmerciful rate, and all because it was your sovereign will and pleasure that I should so conduct myself. If you had taken it into your heads that I should stand upon mine, I should readily have obeyed, satisfied that upon your heads, and not upon mine, would alight the imputed heaviness. In the midst of all these vagaries my mind was sober: my limbs alone were guilty, and old Time has given them a hint to discontinue their gambols. Some sour few of you may assert that I have played the fool: that I beg leave respectfully to deny the character was performed by those who paid their cash at the door. In doing what I have done, I have felt a reasonable degree of pleasure at censure withheld, but not one spark of gratitude for favours conferred; your conduct with respect to Master Betty and Miss Mudie entirely obliterating all such transient emotions. When your even-handed justice placed me in the dramatic balance, had any foreign nightingale's tongue tickled your whimsical palates, I well know that you would have soused it into the opposite scale, and my merits would have kicked the beam, in company with Shakspeare, Congreve, and other antiquated Quizzes. You have lost your money, and I have found it, and right glad am I that it has so happened, otherwise I should have been obliged to protract to a more distant period, the pleasure of bidding you cheerfully farewell."

MEMORANDA LUSITANICA,

BY JOHN ADAMSON.

No. IV.

[Continued from P. 86.]

THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA.

A realm, which held its head among the nations,
Droops in despondence, and expects its fall.
The hour when nature, in convulsion, hurl'd
Our lofty domes and temples to the dust,

Was fraught with less calamity....

I see and hail a glorious beam of light,
Which pierces through the darkness of the cloud,
And gives a promise of a brighter day
To great Braganza's House.

VII. DUKE JOAM was succeeded by his eldest son, Theodosius, Duke of Barcellos, who, when a youth, accompanied his cousin, Sebastian, in his unfortunate expedition into Africa, and was taken prisoner by the Moors at the battle of Alcazar. By the interposition of Philip II. he was released by Muley Hamet, King of Morocco, and returning to Portugal, was detained at San Lucar by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who, upon receiving information of the death of Henrique, conceived it would be rendering a service to Philip to have the person of the heir of the principal pretender to the throne of Portugal in his disposal. When in this situation, this heroic prince wrote to his father, begging that his detention might not in any wise prejudice the rights of the realm, and informing him that he preferred his country's liberty to his life. This letter was produced at the Cortes assembled at Almerim, his father displaying his grief at the imprisonment of his son, and his satisfaction at his heroic magnanimity. His fears, however, were dissipated by the release of Theodosius, by the express order of Philip, who wished to conciliate by every means in his power, the Duke and the Portuguese.*

* Conestaggio. Vasconcellius.